


the argument from roses

by syllogismos



Series: f*ck the world [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Asexual!Sherlock, Asexuality, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Masturbation, Non-Linear Narrative, Oral Sex, Relationship Negotiation, borrowing from canon, with apologies to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:54:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syllogismos/pseuds/syllogismos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Universal pleasures do not exist: some people don't like the smell of roses, some people don't like sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the argument from roses

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to [not everything is always just as it seems](http://archiveofourown.org/works/624869). Angstier.
> 
> Explicit sexual content. If you're concerned about triggers, there isn't anything non-consensual here, but there's more detailed discussion of the contents in the end notes that may be helpful.
> 
> Many thanks to [lbmisscharlie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie/pseuds/lbmisscharlie) for excellent beta work! Thanks also to everyone in #antidiogenes for their support and encouragement.

_Sherlock walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. John was half-turned in anticipation of leaving the room now that Sherlock’s interview with the client had concluded. When Sherlock only turned the flower stem slowly between his fingertips and thumb and watched the petals wheel around and back again, John tried to turn back but tripped himself on an uneven floorboard—damn this_ old _house—and nearly stumbled into Sherlock, who hardly flinched._

_“Did you know, John,” Sherlock started, speaking with uncharacteristic musing slowness and still looking only at the flower in his hand, “the beauty of flowers used to be a popular argument for the existence of a benevolent God.”_

_The up-and-down intermittent workings of John’s mouth, absent any sound, attested to his consideration and immediate discarding of several replies. He crossed his arms over his chest as Sherlock continued._

_"It’s almost a truism to say that there is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion, but not in the way that Christians think. The wrongness of their_ idiotic _arguments is quite instructive." Sherlock looked up and met John’s watchful gaze, although he did not release the flower._

_John unfolded his arms and stepped closer; they were alone in the room now, so he could stand close at Sherlock’s side, the buckle of his belt nearly brushing Sherlock’s thigh. He laid his fingers over Sherlock’s on the stem of the rose, tipping it towards himself to look as if the key to Sherlock’s odd behavior could be found in its face._

_“Take me through it then?”_

_Sherlock seemed to search John’s face, perhaps looking for any hint of smirk or teasing, and, finding none, he laid out the argument with a careful patience never employed laying out dry collars and umbrellas, dirty and clean jewellery, splash patterns, the origin of stationery, or the handedness of a_ murdered _victim._

 _"Flowers are man’s highest assurance of the existence of a benevolent force in the Universe. That was the thesis, and the argument for it went like this: all other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this_ rose _is an extra." Sherlock twirled the stem of the rose again in demonstration, dislodging John’s fingers._

_“Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. And since it is only goodness which gives extras, there must be a source of good in the Universe, a benevolent God. It’s not unlike the teleological argument, wouldn’t you say?”_

_John startled. “Sure–” Then he recovered. “And Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection put that argument to bed.”_

_“Yes, yes, what’s instructive here is that this argument—let’s call it the argument from roses—fails doubly. Do you see how?”_

_It was a rhetorical question; John waited._

_"The argument from roses fails not_ just _because we now know that the colour and smell of roses are the product of millions of years of natural selection to the end result of a flower that entices bees and other insects to drink its nectar and carry its pollen to other roses and all that. The argument from roses_ also _fails because it presupposes the universal appeal of roses."_

_“Not everyone likes the smell of roses.”_

_“Precisely.” Sherlock smiled, looking down at John, and John came back to an awareness of himself for long enough to realise that sometime between Sherlock’s unseating of his fingers from the rose and the present moment, he’d slung an arm around Sherlock’s waist and looped two of his fingers into one of Sherlock’s belt loops to anchor himself. Sherlock was leaning back against the folded-up interior shutters of the window. It was a bit of an awkward position: his hips canted forward so as not to press John’s arm back against the slats of the shutters. At the same time, Sherlock looked comfortable, his shoulders low and loose and his left thumb tucked into the same belt loop with John’s fingers._

_"The instructive failure of the argument is in its assumption of the_ universal _appeal of something that really only appeals to the majority. The minority case, if rare, is nevertheless crucial."_

_Sherlock turned away from John, shifting his attention back to the rose. He bent down to sniff it and then held it for John to do the same. Finally, he released it, allowing the slender stem to whip back to its previous position and shape. He rubbed the tips of his fingers together and sniffed them too._

_“Do you like it?” John asked._

_Sherlock tipped a shoulder, a shrug in miniature. “It’s not offensive.”_

_“But you wouldn’t seek it out?”_

_“No.”_

_This made John frown, and he felt (rather than consciously controlled) a serious and contemplative expression overtaking his face from the top down: creases forming in his forehead, the slight contraction of nostrils, and the tight pressing together of lips. When he saw the skin fold up between Sherlock’s brows, echoing his own concern, John tipped forward and hid his face in Sherlock’s shoulder. Taking a deep breath, he smelled Sherlock’s sweat—it was a warm spring day, and Sherlock was all wrapped up in the layers of a suit, as always—but it wasn’t off-putting. The smell was pungent and human, and John wormed his nose deeper into Sherlock’s armpit as Sherlock’s arm snaked around his waist. They could continue this conversation later, John decided. Now was for now: a springtime moment of a warm breeze coming through the window and of the mingling odours of Sherlock’s sweat and blooming moss-roses._

* * *

After tucking The Woman’s phone into the drawer, Sherlock indulges in a moment of contemplation, one corner of his mouth curling up as evidence of his mood. There’s a sweet—and for him, unusual (at least in this context, the _personal_ )—brightly slicing sense of anticipation rippling under his skin. John is confused, he knows, because Sherlock asked for Her phone, and that implied _sentiment_. It was one of John’s very first lessons in deduction, the keeping of phones as an indication of sentiment.

But sentiment is not simple. Sentiment may be triggered by _things_ , but the connection between the thing and the memory is not always obvious to an outsider. It’s not obvious to John. John thinks he knows why Sherlock wants to keep The Woman’s phone—John thinks attraction to Irene, maybe even _love_ for Irene, or at least deep infatuation—but John is wrong. John is _completely_ wrong.

Sherlock ends his reverie at the window and returns to his microscope when he hears John’s feet on steps one and two of seventeen. He has to fight the impulse to look up when John crosses the threshold. It will be more fun, catching John by surprise.

It doesn’t take long for an opportunity to present itself—John walks behind him to put the kettle on, casually and completely unconsciously brushing his elbow against Sherlock’s bowed back—but even as Sherlock recognises the opportunity, it passes. There’s a sharper edge to the anticipation now; a minute rush of adrenaline edges it closer to trepidation.

When John comes close again, setting a mug of tea for Sherlock on the table, Sherlock seizes John’s elbow before he can step away again to retrieve his own mug of tea. Sherlock turns on his chair and rearranges his hands quickly: his left on John’s waist, his right stretching up to the back of John’s neck, pulling his head down. Sherlock tilts his head to the left and presses his lips to John’s. John had tensed as soon as Sherlock reached out to him, so it’s impossible to tell whether John is more displeased by the kiss than by the rest. Or at least it’s impossible until John’s left hand cradles the back of Sherlock’s head. John presses his lips back against Sherlock’s, shifting delicately to find an incrementally better fit. That’s enough confirmation for Sherlock: John is still attracted to him; he’s just been suppressing it since Sherlock dismissed his sideways advances over dinner at Angelo’s that very first evening they spent together. When John pulls away, his fingers play in Sherlock’s hair (an unexpected comfort), and he looks Sherlock full in the eye when he asks, “Explain?”

“I want to keep you.”

“ _Keep_ me?”

The grip of Sherlock’s fingers at John’s waist tightens. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“And you think this–” John removes his hand from Sherlock’s hair and waves it between them, “is necessary to keep me from leaving?”

“I think it’s one way.”

“But not the only way?”

Sherlock shakes his head.

“Good. I’ve no intention of leaving, Sherlock. This–” Hand-waving again. “This isn’t required.”

“I know.”

John frowns. “Is it something you _want_ then?”

“I don’t know.” Sherlock doesn’t know because he hasn’t _tried_ , ever, and he thinks that John must know that because Mycroft was so _kind_ as to point it up. So there’s no need to point it up again.

John looks for something in Sherlock’s eyes, and Sherlock doesn’t know if he finds it before he threads a hand back into Sherlock’s hair and bends down to apply his lips to Sherlock’s forehead. “I want you to be sure,” he whispers.

And then John just walks away, taking his mug of tea to the sitting room as if nothing has happened, and it’s both perfect—John, taking Sherlock in stride, as always—and _terrifying_.

* * *

Science is not at all as it is depicted on television and in movies. In short: science is tedious, often even _boring_. The paradox of Sherlock’s engagement in scientific experimentation as a means to relieve boredom when all it does is create great, long, tedious, _boring_ stretches of time when he can’t even walk away and do something else because he’s watching for a precipitate to form in a solution or timing the slow disintegration of corneal tissue when exposed to potassium hydroxide, _this_ is a paradox he’s unhappily aware of.

And particularly unhappy in this moment. This experiment is a measure of the ultimate tensile strength of various samples of human skin, and all of it is automated except for the moment each sample finally fails. That moment he has to record precisely, since he can only calculate the force applied _post facto_ by calculating it from the time from zero that the sample failed. Perhaps it’s his fault that this is tedious: he automated the motors driving the application of force to each sample, but neglected to automate a system for recording the failures. But that would have been much harder. It may be that not all of the samples fail in the same way. No, he couldn’t have avoided this tedium. Knowing that doesn’t make it any less tedious, unfortunately.

But _bloody hell_ he needs to relieve this dullness somehow. Perched on a stool at the kitchen table, he didn’t even bring a book over, not that he should be looking away from the samples in any case. And that just leaves–. Sherlock concentrates for a moment, listening. And _yes_ , there are intermittent— _very_ intermittent, bless John and his terrible typing skills—keyboard sounds coming from the sitting room. _Well_. This could be fun.

Sherlock bites his lower lip, trying to hold back a smile John can’t see anyway. He presses his left palm over his fly to muffle the sound as he unzips it slowly with right thumb and forefinger, eyes still fixed on his skin samples. It takes slow, careful wriggling to get his trousers halfway down his thighs, but then it’s easy enough to draw his prick out of the slit in his pants.

And now it’s annoying again, having to keep his eyes on the skin samples, because this is something he’s always liked to watch: the slow creeping blush as his cock fills and hardens, a physical transformation to match the migration and disintegration of segments of his attention and willpower down and down, localising in these inches of flesh (vulgar to say how many, although _of course_ he’s measured). He strokes slowly in order to keep quiet, squeezing tightly to compensate for the low velocity and twisting his foreskin at the top to caress his glans indirectly.

Even though he’s looking right at his array of skin samples—six of them—it still makes him jump (and almost _almost_ yelp in a manner that would have been entirely undignified) when the first sample fails. The _snap_ of the skin tearing and nails-on-chalkboard screech of the stool’s legs on the floor when he jerks forward are probably enough to lure John over. _Perfect_.

And there they are: John’s footsteps, just as Sherlock straightens up from bending over to mark down the time the first sample failed. Just as Sherlock takes himself back in hand, squeezing his cock at the base and twisting his whole hand down slowly, allowing himself the briefest second of abandon—chin up, eyes closed, humming a little in tune with the thrumming of the blood engorging his cock. Dragging his eyes back to the samples, Sherlock increases the pace of his twisting strokes on his cock, no longer concerned about keeping them slow and quiet. The footsteps have stopped now; John is likely watching. John _had better_ be watching.

John is _definitely_ watching: he swears under his breath with surprise when the second sample fails. Sherlock doesn’t leave off his wanking this time, only switches hands while he notes the time. John probably can’t see his cock clearly when he’s bent over to write, though, so Sherlock stays bent over, waiting to see if John will say anything. (His odds are eighty-twenty that John won’t.)

John doesn’t, but Sherlock can hear his breathing now, and he can imagine the look on John’s face: surprise, confusion, lust. It’s definitely an expression that would come with an open mouth, maybe a flush up his neck, across his cheeks, coloring the hard edges of his ears. _Damnit_. The third sample fails, and Sherlock notes down the time and curses this whole plan because he so _badly_ wants to not just deduce but actually _see_ the expression on John’s face, but he can’t. If he doesn’t keep his eyes on the samples, he’ll just have to do this whole experiment over again. And worse, now he probably has to wait to come until after all of the samples have failed; since three have gone already, the remaining three could very well be close behind, and he can’t risk missing them while he’s in the throes of an orgasm. Tedious. Again.

The fourth sample fails. He spreads his legs wider and pulls his cock over to the side, completely out of John’s line of sight, presumably. And is that? Yes, John actually _whimpered_. And is he craning his neck this way and that? Has he quietly shuffled any closer, under the cover of the scratching of Sherlock’s pencil? Infuriating not to _know_.

And, well, now that Sherlock thinks about it—straightening up again and letting his cock swing back to centre—now that Sherlock _thinks_ , he can easily memorise a couple of timestamps. So he needs to keep his eye on the remaining two samples, but he can bring himself off now if he likes. Shifting his left hand down to his bollocks, cupping and rolling them gently, he brings his right back to the crown, rubbing his thumb gently over the slit and gathering up his leaking pre-come to smear down the length of his shaft.

It’s still _maddening_ not to be able to see how he’s affecting John. And the result, which is not the most charitable idea—really, it’s very petty, especially since he started this whole thing—is that he works at himself with only the tiniest, barely visible motions. Motions that John can’t hardly detect from his position just inside the threshold to the kitchen (not enough steps for him to have come any closer, not to mention his general _modus operandi_ of caution and propriety these days when it comes to sexual relations between him and Sherlock).

Sherlock rubs at his frenulum with tiny jerks of his index and middle fingers and sweeps his thumb back and forth over his slippery glans and fights and fights to keep his eyes on the samples. The failure of the fifth and sixth samples, one after another _pop pop_ , startle him so badly he almost comes from the sheer shock of it. Something of that must show in his body language—possibly his fumbling of the pencil—because John actually _laughs_ , not a full laugh, just a half choked off bark. And _bloody hell_ John’s face has got to be red with the effort of holding back (his laughter and everything else), but now that Sherlock’s started this _game_ , he intends to see it to the very finish. He’s not going to look.

Instead of looking, Sherlock scoots the stool back and spreads his legs and gives John a show that’s not a show. He keeps at the head of his cock with the tiny movements and pushes his balls up against the base of his cock with his other hand until _there_ , that’s _it_ , and he’s coming into his cupped palm so that John can’t even _see_.

The text message alert when he’s rinsing his hand and penis at the kitchen sink is not a surprise in the least, and neither is John’s absence when Sherlock finally turns around, trousers done back up and smooth as if freshly pressed.

In the morning, Sherlock wakes first and contemplates absconding from the bed before John comes back to consciousness. But he can’t be _sure_ that John didn’t wake up when he climbed into bed with him gone three o’clock in the morning, and John might be displeased to wake up and find Sherlock gone again. Or will he be? And is he displeased about Sherlock’s refusal to have sex the night before, after the show he’d put on? (Sherlock had not answered John’s text at all last night, letting his procrastinatory lack of response stand in for a ‘no.’) Just thinking through the possibilities and trying to work out where John fits into them is wearying.

And it’s literally wearying: Sherlock has fallen back into a half-lucid doze when John finally stirs beside him. John yawns, and Sherlock catches it, and his jaw cracks loudly.

“All right?” John asks, his hand reaching for Sherlock’s jaw, holding and seeking for tender spots with gentle fingertips.

“Fine,” Sherlock answers.

John pulls closer and tucks his head under Sherlock’s chin, tasting the skin at the base of his neck before speaking again. “When did you come in last night?”

“Sometime between three and four.”

“That late? Are you going to sleep some more?”

“Maybe.”

Not content just to see and study the many hues of John’s hair so close under his chin, Sherlock pushes his fingers through it, combing up against the grain from the base of John’s neck.

“ _Oh_ ,” John moans. “That’s nice.” He exhales long and warm into Sherlock’s skin and then suddenly his chin is pressing into Sherlock’s sternum as he tips his face up to look Sherlock in the eye. “And that reminds me.” John licks his lips. “Thank you for yesterday. I had the best wank of my fucking life last night, thanks to you.”

Sherlock tugs John up by his hair, but it’s infuriatingly difficult to kiss him properly when they’re both grinning so widely. And it doesn’t matter.

* * *

John’s face and his posture—both relaxed, his face adorned with a half smile—tell Sherlock he’s got this right: John expects Sherlock in his bedroom now, when Sherlock decides to sleep. John was dozing already, maybe: there are faint pressure marks on the side of his face from the wrinkles in the pillowcase, and his eyes look a little puffy. He’s propped up on one elbow by the time Sherlock enters after knocking.

It was an odd thing, the compulsion to knock before entering John’s room. Sherlock never used to do it before, but this thing between them now is a thing he has no experience with. This thing is new, and he wants it to work, so he finds himself second-guessing at every decision point. It’s exhausting. Even now, he needs to decide how to join John in bed. John is shirtless, but Sherlock can’t tell if he’s completely naked. He’s paused for too long.

“Take off your clothes?” And then: “If you want.”

Sherlock doesn’t aim to give John a show—he wouldn’t know how, really—but he doesn’t turn away while he strips out of his shirt, and John watches, his eyes tracking each plane of newly exposed skin. Sherlock pulls his trousers and pants off together, and he leaves everything in a pile on the floor—evidence of his moulting, he thinks, metaphorically apt in more than one way—as he crosses to the bed.

John’s holding the sheet up for Sherlock to crawl under, and he kisses Sherlock firmly as soon as Sherlock is settled next to him, one arm slung around John’s waist. As his lips wander to Sherlock’s jaw and neck, dropping soft wet kisses, John slides a hand to grasp Sherlock’s arse and tugs sharply to draw their groins together. And _oh_ , that’s wonderful. Their pricks are both soft and silky and sharing the same warm pocket of space between their bodies; it’s _intimate_. Sherlock presses his hips forward into the sensation when John’s hand leaves his arse for his lower back. He presses carefully because he doesn’t want to arouse himself or John; he wants to keep _this_. Just this.

“Sherlock.” John taps a finger on a cheekbone to get Sherlock’s attention. Sherlock blinks his eyes open, not remembering that he closed them.

“Hm?” Sherlock hooks an ankle over John’s and pulls with his arm around John’s torso, trying to keep John as close as possible even though John’s trying to put enough distance between them to talk.

“You don’t really like orgasms, do you?”

“What?”

“The other night, after I went down on you, you seemed…”

“What?”

“Stressed?”

“Not everyone wants a cuddle after sex.”

John raises an eyebrow, an implicit _How would you know?_ that makes Sherlock grind his teeth.

“I _like_ orgasms, John.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve had them?” Sherlock allows scorn to soak into each word before he lets it fly free. He pushes away from John a little and props himself up on an elbow. It itches at the back of his mind, suddenly, having the door at his back.

“When?”

“What do you mean, _when_? Whenever I feel like it! In the shower, sometimes. Sometimes after a case when I’m still keyed up but I haven’t slept in days. Sometimes in my chair, if you’re not home. Twice, in the kitchen.”

“You’ve wanked in the kitchen?”

“You were even home, one of the times.”

John glares, briefly, but then he refocuses his line of questioning. “How often?”

“Does it really matter?”

“I’m trying to understand, Sherlock.”

“You’re making a bad job of it. My wanking has nothing to do with–” Sherlock waves his hand through the distressingly large space between them.

“Okay.” John sighs as only he can, the world-weariest sigh of all sighs. “Come back here?” He holds an arm out.

Sherlock settles back in again. Lower, this time, so that he can tuck his head under John’s chin. John’s genitals are still soft, a comforting presence against his belly. Sherlock eases a leg between John’s to keep him close.

“I’m going to ask you about the other night,” John says, his voice dropping in volume and in tone. It’s a warning and an apology.

“ _Fine_.”

“So you like orgasms, fine. But I don’t think you liked getting a blow job, the other night.” John pauses, but Sherlock doesn’t say anything. “Am I wrong?”

“No.” Sherlock tenses everywhere.

“Can I ask what you didn’t like about it?” When Sherlock doesn’t answer right away, John ducks his head to press his lips against Sherlock’s temple, and he draws his palm gently up and down Sherlock’s back.

“Too hot. Too wet.”

“But you didn’t stop me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” Sherlock’s tone is at odds with the way he snuggles in closer to John. “I wanted to _come_.”

“But you didn’t enjoy it.”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t _want_ it. And I didn’t _not_ enjoy it. It was just…relief. Physiology.”

“Hm.” John kisses Sherlock’s temple again and rubs soothing circles into his scalp. “We’ll try something else next time.”

Sherlock says nothing in response.

* * *

> Bored. -SH
> 
> Home in fifteen. Try not to burn anything down.

And then, before Sherlock’s had time to think up something sufficiently alarming in response:

> I’ve been thinking about your mouth all day.
> 
> Are you asking me to fellate you? -SH
> 
> Yes. Text me your answer when I get home.

Sherlock listens for the front door with a one-word message at the ready, and he presses send when he hears the creak of the door, but John’s shadow doesn’t creep over the threshold of 221B for another fifteen minutes, and by then Sherlock is at the window, exercising his restless fingers and pouring out his frustrations into the fiendishly quick and abrasive phrases of Stravinsky’s Concerto in D. He feels John’s presence at his back when he’s halfway through the first Aria, but he doesn’t stop playing. John waits and only steps forward when Sherlock finishes and lets the violin drop from his chin. John’s hands grip his hips, and he presses his face between Sherlock’s shoulder blades.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and the breath of his words is hot through dressing gown and T-shirt. Sherlock finds the tension seeping from his shoulders like water through a sand filter. It’s gravity-driven; natural law.

“I had to stop in and check on Mrs. Hudson, what with her ankle. I didn’t remember until I got back.” John murmurs this into Sherlock’s back as well, and he slides his arms all the way around Sherlock’s waist, giving a little squeeze but not holding tightly. “Did I put you out of the mood?”

Sherlock considers. He breaks out of John’s loose hold to return violin and bow securely within their case, loosening the bow hair with two quick flicks of his wrist before tucking it into place. After snapping the case shut, he straightens and turns and waits for John, who’s studying the bookshelves in a false pretence of nonchalance, to turn back.

“Not exactly,” he answers finally, fixing his eyes to John’s.

“Right. So, then–”

“In your chair. Trousers off.” John swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat and a hint of flush creeping up from under his collar almost instantaneously. Sherlock fights to keep a smile off his face—flustering John is, as always, _fun_ —and adds, “Quite quickly, if you please.”

John is clumsy but speedy in the removal of his shoes and trousers. Not only his pants but his socks too stay on, and Sherlock has to bite his lip to keep from laughing at the sight. Six strides separate Sherlock from the Union Jack pillow, and then three back to John’s chair, where he throws it down at John’s feet and then lowers himself to his knees. John spreads his legs to make room, but Sherlock nudges his legs even wider with two thumbs pressed to the inside of John’s knees, pushing lightly. He’s holding John’s gaze again, and he pinches the tender skin inside John’s left knee when John tries to look away.

“Take out your prick,” Sherlock instructs, and he pinches again when John tries to tip his eyes down. “Surely you don’t need to look to find it.”

John glares; Sherlock smirks, and he bends down to lick the inside of John’s right knee.

When Sherlock raises his head again, John is holding his mostly soft prick in hand. (He’s not in his twenties anymore after all; it takes a more direct kind of stimulation to arouse him.)

Something bright unfolds in Sherlock’s gut seeing John offering himself like that because this, _this_ is on Sherlock’s list, and his mouth waters in anticipation. Putting his mouth around John’s cock while it’s still soft is something he’s wanted but found difficult to ask for outright. That he’s succeeded, finally, in engineering a situation where he could get to John before he’s excited and hard and wanting is satisfying on some level that almost certainly has nothing to do with sex. And so he leans forward and lowers his head, keeping his eyes on John’s for as long as possible while he gently removes John’s hand, replacing it with one of his own, and guides John’s prick into his mouth.

He himself might not like it from the receiving end, but Sherlock knows that John likes it wet and sloppy. It’s not unpleasant from this end, especially not with silky shifting foreskin under his tongue. Sherlock is so focused on pushing and pulling with his lips and caressing with his tongue and cataloguing via the most intimate observational tool—his mouth—the slow change in shape and texture and temperature as John’s cock fills and swells and seems to fit into his mouth as if moulded to do so, so focused is he that he almost misses John’s hand stealing into his hair, combing gently through tangled curls. He can’t bring himself to release John’s cock—it _belongs_ in his mouth, now—to stop John, so he just pulls off enough to keep the head of it in his mouth and raises a hand blindly to pluck John’s from his hair, removing it to the arm of the chair and patting it, hoping to convey an unspoken command.

“Okay,” John says on an exhale that becomes a quick, almost pained sounding inhale when Sherlock presses the point of his tongue as hard as he can into John’s slit. Sherlock’s satisfied that John understands the parameters of this interaction, and now that he’s up at the head he’s not in a hurry to take John back deep into his mouth. Not yet. Not while there’s more fun to be had here.

“Sherlock!” John gasps when Sherlock grazes his frenulum with his bottom teeth, rubbing at the seam of his bollocks with the index finger of his free hand. Sherlock licks to soothe and sucks a little and judges that, yes, John’s prick _did_ just get a little harder, so Sherlock puts his teeth to use again, scraping slowly and gently, and John’s prick twitches in his mouth. Sherlock can feel the vibrations from John’s moans through his hard palate, where John’s prick is pressed, and he can smell the sweat popping out through John’s pores, and suddenly it’s all very urgent: Sherlock takes John in as far as he can, fighting his gag reflex and swallowing both reflexively and intentionally. He sets a fast rhythm, bracing one arm across John’s hips and holding the base of his cock firmly in his other hand.

John doesn’t give much of a warning before he comes. Just a hoarse “Sherlock, I’m–” and Sherlock pulls off to stroke John through his orgasm with his hand. John’s face in ecstasy—mouth open, eyes half-lidded but looking down into Sherlock’s eyes—not to mention his knuckles white where he’s clutching the chair arms and the way his whole body tenses; all of it is distracting. Sherlock forgets to back away much or pay attention to which way John’s penis is aimed, and he ends up with John’s spunk decorating the collar of his T-shirt and spattering on his neck. It doesn’t register at first; he’s too focused on watching John go limp, tracking a drop of John’s sweat as it trails down from his hairline just in front of his ear to travel along his jaw for a shy two centimetres and then down his neck to rest in his jugular notch.

Sherlock wants to lick up that drop of sweat, but it’s too far a stretch from his current position, so instead he bends his head again to swipe his tongue over John’s softening prick, nominally cleaning it (but also taking great pleasure in the twitches he manages to provoke, if he’s honest).

Eventually John shifts and pushes Sherlock away slightly so that he can pull his pants back up and tuck himself away. Then his hands return to Sherlock, curling and tugging playfully at one ear, and at his shoulder. It’s when Sherlock moves, coming up off his knees to settle over John’s lap, it’s then that Sherlock registers the semen on his collar and neck.

“Your _face_ ,” John laughs. “Come here. Let’s get you out of that.” John yawns even as his nimble fingers push the sleeves of Sherlock’s dressing gown down and off and ruck up his T-shirt. John strips his shirt off and uses it to wipe away the semen on his skin, and then he pulls Sherlock into him and it’s all knees and elbows and definitely not enough room in the chair—a greyhound and a German shepherd _together_ in a cat bed—but somehow no essential limbs or other appendages get pinched or trapped, and Sherlock ends up with his head tucked over John’s shoulder, giving easy access for his mouth to that patch of skin where neck joins shoulder, the place where the chain of John’s dog tags surely used to rest. He mouths at the warm skin there idly and lets John’s fingers work through the tangles in his hair. John’s other hand trails down Sherlock’s spine, etching his gratitude into skin with soothing touch and gentleness.

* * *

“What’s this for?” John looks down at the small bowl of ice cubes just handed to him by Sherlock.

Sherlock strips off his pyjama bottoms and kneels on the bed next to John. He never wears pants under his pyjamas, so John’s not surprised to see him naked from the waist down, but judging by the heroic climbing of his eyebrows, he is surprised to see Sherlock’s prick most of the way hard, the glans just starting to poke through the foreskin, glistening.

“I’m horny,” Sherlock explains.

“I can see that.” John almost reaches out to touch, but then he pauses. “And?”

Sherlock points at the bowl of ice. “I thought maybe we could try cold and wet.”

“I know everybody’s different, Sherlock, but I can’t really imagine ice cubes on your–”

“Not the ice directly on me!” Sherlock gets impatient, waiting for the penny to drop. “The ice in your mouth, and then your mouth–”

“ _Oh_.”

John reaches for the bowl, and the tips of his fingers slide on the slippery surface of the ice; it slips away when he tries to grasp it, and he draws his hand back.

“What?”

John palms the crest of Sherlock’s hip. Sherlock looks down at John’s hand as if it’s the touch of an alien. Certainly it’s unneeded, unwanted, in this moment.

“Do you want to lie down?”

 _Oh_. John’s just thinking ahead. “No particularly, no,” he answers.

“Just like this, then?” John’s hand slips from his hip to his buttocks and tugs him into a straddle over his lap. John fluffs and rearranges the pillows behind him and shimmies down a bit until he’s satisfied that if Sherlock just leans forward a bit, his prick and John’s mouth will be lined up well enough to make this work.

John reaches for the ice again, and he pops two of the smaller, half-melted cubes into his mouth. The sight does something strange to Sherlock; the twinge in his gut is not arousal. To distract himself, Sherlock reaches out for John’s hand, fingertips still wet but not really cold, and guides it to his groin.

John’s fingers curl around the base of his cock, and he drags three fingers down to the tip and back, but then he drops his hand to Sherlock’s balls instead, rolling them in his palm and smirking around the ice in his mouth when this provokes a twitch from Sherlock’s hips. There’s a fresh twinge of whatever-it-is-but-it’s-not-arousal when John knuckles the skin behind his balls, and Sherlock braces his hands on John’s shoulders (what was he even doing with them before?) and looks away. There’s a scuff mark on the wall next to John’s bed. What can it be from? He should be able to figure it out, but his mind is a blank.

 _Plink plink_ is the only warning Sherlock gets before his cock is sheathed entirely in cold wetness. It’s the wetness that stands out and makes his stomach muscles clench painfully. The cold seems to amplify the wet feeling, like a magnet applied to iron filings, forcing them to align in one direction, pointing at one thing: wetness. John holds tight to Sherlock’s arse and slides his mouth slowly up and down as far as he can manage. A fleeting accidental brush of teeth causes Sherlock’s cock to twitch, and John speeds up, moving one hand to the base of Sherlock’s cock to hold it steady as his head bobs.

It ends when John pulls almost all the way off and makes to circle his tongue around just the head. When the still body-temperature-hot underside of John’s tongue makes contact with his slit, Sherlock flinches back to sit on his heels, his hands now pushing at John’s shoulders instead of resting on them, holding John at a safe arm’s length.

Sherlock is breathing hard, and he’s sweating through the underarms of his T-shirt. He stares down at his hard prick in his lap. Treacherous, demanding, ungrateful thing. Why doesn’t it just work _properly_?

Sherlock looks up when the bed shifts. John is extricating himself from under the duvet and reaching for the bowl of half-melted ice once he’s up.

Sherlock reaches out for John’s arm, the one holding the bowl of ice, and he presses the bones of John’s wrist under his fingers. “Don’t go.” He taps the edge of the bowl with his outstretched thumb. “Try again?”

John pulls his arm from Sherlock’s grasp and walks to the dresser, sets the bowl of ice there. Hands on his hips and with his back turned to Sherlock, he speaks slowly. “No, Sherlock. No.”

“But _John_. I’m trying to find something that _works_.”

“It’s not just about _you_!” John whips around. “You can’t ask me to do that to you again, Sherlock. Just no. _No_.”

“But–”

John shakes his head. “I’ll be back in a bit. Sorry. I just need a moment to think.”

Sherlock’s face is contorting in unhappy ways; he can feel the wrenching tugs of dozens of tiny facial muscles. John crosses back to the bed and presses a kiss to his temple before he leaves, shutting the door behind him. Sherlock turns and flops onto his back on the bed, twisting his head to the side to inhale John from the pillow. (There’s not anything of himself to smell there. He’s not been sleeping much this week. Only accidental naps on the sofa.)

Sherlock watches John’s face carefully as he registers the smell of semen when he reenters the room. Sherlock watches for hesitation in John’s step, but there is none. John hitches up one leg and sits on the bed in front of Sherlock, his other leg hanging off but not swinging. (Too tense to let his leg dangle naturally.) Sherlock is curled up on his side now, hands tucked under John’s pillow. He’d put his pyjama bottoms back on after his wank, but he’d also removed his sweaty T-shirt.

“I–” Sherlock starts, but he’s interrupted by John leaning down to kiss him. John’s lips connect with his cheek, first, and when Sherlock doesn’t turn his head John’s hand guides his jaw so that John can fit his lips to Sherlock’s and breathe into his mouth. He leans his forehead into Sherlock’s while he asks, “Had a wank while I was having a think?”

“Yes, I’m–”

“You better not be apologising.”

Sherlock’s teeth click as he closes his mouth abruptly. John settles onto his side facing Sherlock, sliding his fingers into Sherlock’s hair and carding through it absentmindedly.

“Can you tell me what it’s like for you?”

“Wanking?”

“Sure, that too. I meant the…other, but I want to know what it’s all like for you.”

Sherlock rolls onto his back and laces his fingers behind his head. He’ll take the wanking question first. That’s easier.

“Wanking is…wanking. It’s pleasurable. Not like other things, but it’s not _bad_. And it’s inconvenient, sometimes. I wouldn’t, if I could control the urge.” Sherlock pauses, and John’s about to speak, but Sherlock cuts him off again. “Actually I still would. If I was bored.”

John chuckles. He scoots over to rest his head on Sherlock’s bare chest, one arm slung over Sherlock’s belly.

“What do you think about?”

“When?”

“When you wank.”

“How is that relevant?” Sherlock raises his head to look down his body, but he can’t see John’s face. The flex of Sherlock’s chest muscles spurs John to tilt his head back and catch Sherlock’s eye, upside-down. “How is it not?” he asks. The both of them are sporting foreheads creased with confusion. “What did you think about, just now?”

Sherlock thinks back. “Those Manchester murders in the news. The beheadings, but I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“You don’t see how it’s relevant that you get off on _murder_?” John sits up. “I thought– But I didn’t think it was true.” He rubs at his eyes with thumb and index finger.

“I don’t _get off_ on murder! I’m fully capable of thinking about something else while I’m relieving myself.” He arches an eyebrow and waits for the dawning of understanding to show on John’s face, then tugs him back down to his previous position.

“That’s why it’s irrelevant.” Sherlock takes a deep breath; he might as well get the rest of this over with. “As to the other, I don’t know how to describe it. It just feels _wrong_.”

“What about other things? Do you like it when I touch you?”

How, really _how_ is Sherlock supposed to answer that? As the seconds stretch and try to pry his mouth open, Sherlock can feel John turn to stone on his chest, the stone stillness of waiting.

“I don’t _not_ like it,” he finally answers. “I could just as easily do without, if–”

“If what?” John props himself onto an elbow. There’s no looking away now.

“If not for you.”

* * *

John should congratulate himself for having such a brilliant idea, except that John’s actions don’t generally tend to the well-thought-out, to the planned. Perhaps a little _post hoc_ manoeuvring to mitigate risk—scouting out Sherlock’s website between meeting him and going to see a flat with him, for example— but no _strategising_. So this: this isn’t a genius idea, it isn’t a clever set-up. It’s just a text message:

> Horny. Up for it?

Sherlock hears the ding of his own text message alert and the clatter of John’s phone on the coffee table almost simultaneously. He’s in his own chair, all of his limbs tucked in (like “a greyhound in a cat bed” John had said once, ruffling his hair as he passed him a mug of tea). He looks up from the London Natural History Society’s new report on the successful fruiting of _Persea americana_ in the Greater London area and plucks his phone from his dressing gown pocket as he tracks John’s movements across the room. John is headed, it would appear, for a shower. He clicks through to the text from John just as the loo door clicks shut. Ah well. If John is showering, then he’s got nine to eleven minutes to decide how to respond to John’s advance. And that’s…rather clever, actually.

Sherlock smiles to himself and drums his fingers on the arm of the chair as he considers. This report is mostly _dull_ ; he can skim the rest and file away the pertinent details before John finishes his ablutions. He’s got nothing on that will require his attention for the next few hours, and it’s been days since he last wanked. In fact, well, he’d been thinking of going for a long soak and a wank after finishing this report. It won’t be the same, getting off with John (if he even manages it), but it’ll satisfy a different set of needs. There’s something about having John’s hands and breath and saliva all over his skin and, sometimes, inside him that calms that restless thing that sometimes tangles up, thorny and prickly, at the back of his mind. That thing that makes him irritable and not the self he wants to be. (At least when it’s John or Lestrade he’s lashing out at; he couldn’t care less about his snapping at Mycroft or Anderson.)

Sherlock unfolds himself from the chair and stretches as he listens, judging John’s stage in his shower from the pattern of water spatters. He’s still got at least three minutes, and that’s long enough. In three minutes he can retrieve the items they’ll need from John’s room, place them in the middle of his chair, and strip to wait for John naked, in his bed.

John is predictable, but in this case in a way that makes Sherlock grin, stretched out on his back, legs splayed slightly in invitation. He’s stroking himself idly, not really trying to arouse himself, but not _not_ trying, either. And he grins because he hears John exit the loo, likely wrapped in his dressing gown, and pad into the living room. Finding it empty, he moves to the coffee table and bends over slightly to pick up his phone—Sherlock can just hear the scrape of plastic against wood—and then, turning to sweep his eyes over the room after _not_ finding a reply message from Sherlock, John sees the condom and bottle of lubricant Sherlock left in the centre of his chair, the former balanced precisely atop the latter. “Oh,” John says to himself breathily. “Right.”

Sherlock tries to relax the grin off his face as the creak of the floorboards announces John’s approach, but he can’t quite stop smiling, and it’s still a tight-lipped, poorly repressed, and crooked smirk on his face when John steps into the bedroom and finds him.

“You–” John starts, but Sherlock spreads his legs further apart, and John doesn’t finish the thought. Or, rather, he finishes the thought, just not _verbally_.

* * *

John bites Sherlock’s shoulder when he comes. He groans too, and Sherlock can feel the vibrations in his collarbone. Sherlock is a musical instrument, and John’s voice is the player, setting off the vibrations in his bones that will resonate into waves, into music. It’s a nice image, and Sherlock moans even as he tries to ignore the too-hot, too-wet splash of John’s semen over his scrotum and getting rubbed over his perineum as John keeps pumping a little, rubbing his cock between Sherlock’s arse cheeks and gently bumping the head of it into Sherlock’s balls.

When he stills completely, John turns his head to the side and rests his cheek between Sherlock’s shoulder blades. His blinks are barely perceptible butterfly kisses that almost distract Sherlock from the hand wandering: on the outside of his thigh, inside, then out over his hip, then folding around his prick, which is hard but not straining. Sherlock tenses, but John must read it as anticipation. He strokes tightly, pausing occasionally to check for pre-come leaking out the head that he can spread around. After a few minutes, he tugs Sherlock from his side onto his back, half sprawled over John, legs splayed. The position, awkward as it is, allows John to get both his arms around Sherlock and both of his hands on Sherlock’s prick, and he follows a pull with one hand with the other just behind it, an infinite maddening tightness. Ten seconds pass before Sherlock fails to suppress his hips flinching up and away. John tightens his grip, and Sherlock pushes up again and turns his head away to the side.

Sherlock tries to concentrate on breathing, on counting John’s strokes, on _anything_ else, but his mind is too full of the ache between his legs and callused hands and hot breath between his shoulder blades. And then, suddenly, the hot breath is gone as John extracts himself from under Sherlock and moves to kneel between Sherlock’s spread legs, touching Sherlock with one finger only, stroking back and forth over the top of his thigh.

Sherlock opens tightly closed eyes and looks up at John without turning his head any farther than necessary.

“What do you want?”

There’s not a good answer to that. Sherlock closes his eyes again and rubs his head against the sheets. He can’t stay still, can’t open his eyes, can’t tell John what he wants. Everything is _can’t_.

“Sherlock?”

This time, when John’s hand that Sherlock couldn’t see coming closes around his prick, Sherlock’s flinch is more easily distinguishable from an involuntary bucking of hips. He flinches _away_ this time, pushing himself up the bed with his heels and throwing an arm over his face.

John waits. Sherlock doesn’t move; he hardly breathes, although when John’s thumb starts tracing circles at the inside of his ankle, Sherlock exhales shakily and releases the fists his hands had contorted into.

“Can you tell me what you want?”

Sherlock rolls onto his side as he speaks. “I want,” he starts, and as he curls his legs up, hiding his prick: “to _come_.”

“All right. Okay.” The bedsprings creak as John shifts. “Do you want me to leave?” The hand has left his ankle.

Sherlock doesn’t answer in words. His silences converse with the bedsprings and reply to the scrape of a drawer opening and fabric gliding over skin. The colloquy ends with the gentle closing of the bedroom door. It’s John with the last word this time.

* * *

When he comes back from his Fall, Sherlock is sure.

The twelve steps up to John’s room are difficult to ascend quietly, but Sherlock tries, concentrating on the smoothness of the wood grain under the skin of his feet. Although it’s the same wood as the seventeen steps up to the flat, it’s unfamiliar because he never uses those without shoes, and he’s also never gone up to John’s room like this: at night, in just his dressing gown.

John doesn’t seem to stir when Sherlock eases the door open; he appears to be sleeping deeply. Nevertheless, Sherlock moves with deliberate slowness. He closes the door again, wincing when the latch slots back into place with a _thunk_. John is curled on his side, back to the wall, but there’s room on the bed behind him, so Sherlock knees up onto the bed and eases himself down between John and the wall. His weight pulls the sheet tighter around John’s body, but the rhythm of John’s breathing doesn’t change, and Sherlock slowly relaxes himself. Thankfully it’s warm up here on the third floor, and Sherlock doesn’t anticipate having trouble sleeping without getting under the sheet with John. He fixes his eyes on the skin at the side of John’s neck, just where neck meets shoulder: it’s there that he wants to press his lips and taste, but he won’t while John’s asleep. Instead he calculates John’s respiratory rate from the rise and fall of his shoulder, just visible out of the corner of his eye. (Result: an ordinary 12 breaths per minute.)

It’s not long before Sherlock’s breathing is in sync with John’s and his eyelids droop and his consciousness melts into sleep.

When Sherlock wakes, John’s already awake and has apparently been watching him sleep. He’s flipped onto his other side, facing Sherlock, hands folded under his head, tucked under the pillow. He doesn’t smile when Sherlock blinks at him, waking up slowly.

“Explain.” There’s not much of a question aspect; it’s a command.

“I’m sure now.” Sherlock wants to kiss John, to touch him and press their bodies together and wrap his own longer limbs all around John, but he’s afraid of moving too soon: he’s only just returned, and the wound of his Fall is still fresh, for both of them.

“Because you want it?”

“I think so.” But John is a man of certainties, so Sherlock adds, “Yes.”

John still doesn’t seem convinced.

“I want to _try_ ,” Sherlock admits, and he watches as his emphasis on ‘try’ slots into John’s understanding of him and confirms what John had already hypothesised—that Sherlock has absolutely no experience of intimate relationships.

“Oh.” John reaches out and lays a hand over Sherlock’s cheek, stroking back and forth with his thumb over a cheekbone. “I can’t imagine what it was like for you.”

“What?” The change of subject is sudden and unexpected.

“I had support, Sherlock. I had Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade and, you know, _everyone_ that was in my life here in London, except you. You didn’t have anyone.”

“Mycroft.”

“As I said, you didn’t have anyone.” They both laugh, and John’s fingers play over the shell of Sherlock’s ear. “So,” John continues, “you want to try?”

Sherlock nods.

John tugs on his earlobe. “Come closer then.”

Sherlock shifts closer and throws a leg over John’s, anchoring himself. John takes Sherlock’s hand and drapes it around his own waist, and then he returns a palm to Sherlock’s cheek, tracing Sherlock’s bottom lip with his thumb.

“ _John_ ,” Sherlock whines. His voice is a low, rumbling thing in his chest; Sherlock almost doesn’t recognise it. The tingling nervous flush of adrenaline and his pulse zooming: these are recognisable but still odd.

John huffs, but he also indulges. He lays his mouth on Sherlock’s, not hesitating to use his thumb to pull Sherlock’s mouth open right from the start. He explores Sherlock’s mouth slowly with a tongue that’s soft and gentle, stroking over his bottom lip, curling to find the place where the backs of his front teeth meet his hard palate, drawing back to poke at the corners of his mouth before plunging deep inside again. When Sherlock pushes up against John’s tongue with his own, John groans and his grip on Sherlock’s jaw tightens.

After long minutes, Sherlock draws his mouth away from John’s even as he pulls John closer so that he can lay kisses from behind John’s ear down to that spot where neck meets shoulder that he’d been fixating on the night before. Sherlock keeps his mouth in that place, pressing his teeth into warm salty skin and sucking hard. (The urge to mark isn’t one he’d thought about before he finds himself doing it.) John slides his arm down around Sherlock’s waist but otherwise holds perfectly still under Sherlock’s teeth. When Sherlock stops sucking and licks over the bruising skin, John skims his hand up and down from Sherlock’s shoulders to his lower back. Sherlock shivers and closes his eyes against the prickle of rising gooseflesh.

“Good?” John asks.

Sherlock hums a vaguely affirmative response, resettles his head on the pillow, and meets John’s gaze. John leans forward to capture Sherlock’s lips with his own again, just for a moment, and then he tucks his face under Sherlock’s chin. “Consider me kept,” he mumbles. Sherlock chuckles and squeezes his leg around John’s. Neither of them is the same as he was before, but this is good. It might even be better.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Detailed warnings:** This is a somewhere-on-the-asexual-spectrum Sherlock with a libido, and the meat of the story concerns the negotiation of sexual activities between asexual Sherlock and (sexual) John. This should almost go without saying but, just in case: not everything that's depicted here is ideal. I think many parts of it are likely to reflect realities experienced by many people, which is to say: the world is not perfect, and communication in relationships (especially about sex) can be _really fucking hard_. I think everything depicted in the story is consensual, and I think the characters themselves would see it that way too, but there may be some instances of what could be described as self-coerced sexual activity (on Sherlock's part), and that could be triggering for some people, I'm sure.
> 
> The rose scene is a challenge I set myself a while ago to adapt Holmes' "sermon on the rose" from "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty" (one of the strangest Holmes moments in canon) in the BBC 'verse. The opening line and most of the argument are quoted directly from Conan Doyle. I've flipped the argument, of course, because I can't see BBC!Sherlock as anything but an atheist.
> 
> I've left this series as incomplete because I have a plot bunny for another story with the same Sherlock and John, but it requires a bit of research, so no promises about when (or even if) it will appear.


End file.
